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I UNITKD STATES OF AMERICA. ^1 



SOME THOUGHTS 



ON 



THE PACIFICATION OF THE COUNTRY, 



FOR THE CONSIDERATION OP 



THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. 




PETER' AVALKER. 

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SOME THOUGHTS, &c. 



My Fellow-Citizens — While there are many daily 
instructing you how to prosecute this war, permit me to 
offer some suggestions, as to the way in which we may 
obtain peace. The idea in the mind of many people is, 
that we can have peace only when the rebellious .States 
are subjugated; and so excessive is their patriotism, 
that they declare they will not live in a divided 
country. If they meant a country divided in senti- 
ment, and ruled by opposing parties, we certainly know 
that it is an evil to be dreaded; but to separate is 
the oldest way of making peace. Can we not, like 
Abraham, say, "Let there be no strife between us; if 
you will take the left, I will go to the right. Separate 
thyself, I pray thee, from me." With the wliole land 
before us, there is no need for a people opposed to each 
other in principle being bound together. We may still 
be a great people, though in a much smaller country ; 
and the days to which we look back with pride, are 
those in which we had not the half of our present terri- 
tory. I remember the time when our country was 
smaller, and much better governed at home, and more 
respected abroad; and it would be a good exchange, if 
the giving up of our new territory could restore our old 



position. Who is the better, in any way, by having our 
government extended to the Pacific] What advantage 
would we have, that we have not now, by extending 
our empire to the frozen north"? It would be purely 
imaginary. Peace, and security, and freedom to exer- 
cise our individual impulses, arc the blessings received 
from good government, and they are as often enjoyed by 
those who live in small territories as in large ones. 
The greatness of Britain springs not from its colonial 
possessions; and the Uutch, the Swiss, and the Scotch, 
hold fully as respectable a position in the family of 
nations as the Euss, the Spaniard, or the German. 
It is only by a map that we can comprehend the extent 
of our territory, and all its use is to inflate the imagina- 
tion. We are not made richer by its possession, nor 
will we be made poorer by its loss ; and if we can make 
peace by the surrender of a portion of it, it will be 
cheaply purchased. But would any surrender give us a 
lasting and durable peace? To this question I cannot 
answer affirmatively, but will adduce some reasons for 
the consideration of both North and South. 

To the South let me say, your prospect of a lasting 
peace depends much upon your territorial position. It 
is a law of the universe, that the progress of population 
shall be from the north to the south, or from the colder 
to the warmer regions. If you open your country to 
northern emigration, a new people will pour into it, 
and assimilate it to themselves. If you erect a wall 
against them, they will eventually surpass it, and 
destroy you. Any attempt to set up a government 
opposed to this progressive movement, to the south of 
the Potomac, is impracticable. There is a pressure 
against it which you cannot withstand. You hold the 
seaboard of the Northwestern States, and the command 



of that great river on which their commerce mainly 
depends. By the unanimous voice of the country, it 
was decided that these should not be held by a foreign 
power, and you now put yourselves in the place of 
France and Spain, and must, as they did, yield to the 
same force. While you were an integral portion of the 
United States, you held the territory in behalf of our 
common country, and the supremacy over it will never 
be acceded to an adverse power. You may retain for- 
cible possession for a time, but your final subjugation is 
sure. If you can no longer live under the present Union, 
it would have been prudent for you to seek some arena 
where you could act out your own ideas without molest- 
ing others — some more distant field, less exposed to pres- 
sure from Northern emigration. You know something of 
this principle. When you entered into a portion of your 
present possessions, you found Indians in Georgia and 
Florida that you were unwilling to amalgamate into 
your system, or to allow them to stand in the way of 
your progress, and you removed them. It is now 
evident, that what you were to the Indians, you have 
become to a people now pressing westward with resist- 
less power. You were not unscrupulous about remov- 
ing the Indians, and need not complain if the same 
measure be meted out to you. They were wisely re- 
moved to a remote distance ; and if you had asked to 
found a distinct Confederacy, beyond the Mississippi, to 
perpetuate an order of things that could no longer exist 
on the east side of it, I have no doubt that it would 
have been granted to you. The government was cer- 
tainly under no obligation to permit you to do what- 
ever you choose. You proudly dictated your own 
terms, and, confident of your power, avowed your deter- 
mination to support your claim by force. Many 



months before the northern arms were smelted from the 
ore, your newspapers were parading the foot that your 
wives an^l daughters had left off making garments for 
the needy, and were providing lint and bandages for the 
wounded. You have brought upon yourselves what 
you anticipated as the fruit of your actions. Your ex- 
istence as a separate confederacy, for a short period, is 
doubtful: your existence long, where you now claim to 
set up your government, is an impossibility. If you 
persist much longer in rebellion, the government may 
be tempted to pass a universal act of emancipation, and 
subdue you by your own slaves. I believe there are 
few that contemplate governing the revolted States by 
force, but the principles your leaders have promulgated 
would sanction such an atrocity. Since the Northern 
people see that those attached to the Union are a 
minority in the most of the slave States, I believe few 
of them would resist a separation, if it could be made on 
a line offering few obstructions to the working of two 
commercial and political systems. By making the river 
Mississippi common to both countries, under a good 
system of international regulations, this boundary would 
be found, to the East and West; and the Arkansas and 
Missouri and its branches offers the same advantages to 
the North and South. The commercial relations of the 
people to the north of these rivers would not be affected 
by the transfer of their seaboard, as these rivers run 
into the Mississippi, which must ever be their channel of 
communication with the sea. To the west, let the 
boundary be the llocky Mountains, or, if Utah and Cali- 
fornia choose to throw their fortunes in with the Con- 
federate States, let the Pacific be the western bound- 
ary. Here is a magnificent expanse of country, and, 
with Austin for a capital, it might satisfy the wildest 



aspirations of ambition. This is the region to which 
the emigration from the Southern States for many years 
has been turning. The movement to it has retarded 
the progress of population in Georgia and the Carolinas. 
Let the discontented portion of these States follow in 
the track, and take their slaves with them. There is 
room enough in Texas for all of them, and their loca- 
tion there would be a rich boon to the States beyond 
the river. It is only what thousands of their neigh- 
bours have been doing voluntarily ; and let it be only 
done voluntarily still. If any prefer to remain under 
the government of the United States, let them remain ; 
but on receiving the revolted States into the Union, let 
it be with the understanding that slavery would cease, 
as soon as the change could be made safely. At present 
it would be well to give the owners of slaves a right to 
their services, but subject to such laws as Congress 
may from time to time enact to eventuate their free- 
dom. 

There are, I believe, many in the Northern States 
who think that if the war could be brought to a close, 
that the Constitution could be extended over the now 
revolted States, and slavery, with the compromises, con- 
tinue as before the rebellion. It is not easy to keep 
from sympathizing with this feeling. We have enjoyed 
many blessings under this system, and though it has 
presented some evils, yet not of such a character as to 
cause us to desire a disruption. But I regard the res- 
toration of the system as an impossibility. These 
friends of the Union see no place for a dividing line. 
They contend that the country and the people are so 
homogeneous that they must be one. Unfortunately 
for this theory, we now see that a slight diversity in the 
social frame has disrupted all other ties, and ranged 



brothers and kinsmen against each other in the fiercest 
strife that was ever waged between men. The Southern 
portion of the country has repudiated the alliance be- 
tween free soil and slave soil, and declared it incom- 
patible for them to exist together. The same feel- 
ing of repellency, in a lesser degree, exists in the 
North. The acrimonious squabbles in Congress have 
for years filled the hearts of the people with sorrow, 
shame, and indignation. The compact with the 
slave power, under which they groaned, has been 
put an end to by itself, and the Northern people 
have no wish for its restoration. It is in vain 
to expect that at the close of the war, even if the 
rebellious States were reduced to submission, they 
would be placed in the same position as they were pre- 
vious to the rebellion. But whether united again 
w^ith our portion of the Republic or not, the less injury 
that is done to them the better. I have no sympathy 
with those that would make the South a desert ; and if, 
by the division of the country I have suggested, the 
destruction of life and property could be stayed, it 
would be a great blessing to both North and South. 
It is as good a natural division as exists between any 
two countries in the world. We will lose no strength 
by making it. Our weakness has always proceeded 
from our discordant interests, and by concentrating our 
power wc will be stronger. By the division we will 
not only bring this war to a close, but get rid of what 
will be likely to produce wars in future. 

For instance, we may part with Utah. At a great 
cost we sent an army into it only four years ago. It 
submitted; but the same causes of dissatisfaction still 
exist, and it is rumoured that it is now again ripe for 
rebellion. Let the Mormons form an independent gov- 



erilment, and we will have no more occasion to quarrel 
with their customs, than with those of Barbary. The 
advantages we reap from them will be the same, as they 
must, from their position, depend upon the States for 
their intercourse with foreign countries. 

California should also be encouraged to form a sepa- 
rate government. It is absurd to suppose that our 
tariff will be acceptable to it, and by the Constitution 
there is no power to adapt taxation to districts of 
country. The gold will come as freely to us as it does 
now, in exchange for our manufactures, though under 
another regime. 

It is of no advantage to the Northern States to be 
united in the same sovereignty with the extreme South- 
ern and Western, but they differ so much in soil and 
climate that an advantageous commerce will ever exist 
between them. The proposed division will not stop the 
Texan from driving his cattle to the New Orleans mar- 
ket, nor the sugar and cotton of Louisiana from travel- 
ling up the Ohio, seeking only the best market, regard- 
less of the allegiance of the buyer. 

My scheme of settlement would be to let all who 
choose to remove to the west of the Mississippi do it, 
taking their slaves with them, if there are no claims 
against them that existed previous to the declaration of 
the secession of the State; and that the lands vacated be 
taken possession of by the government for future settle- 
ment, subject also to all lawful claims; and that those 
who remain under the government of the United States 
have the right of servitude in their slaves accorded to 
them, subject to the future action of Congress. It 
would be bad policy to impoverish those who remain, 
and who generally would be well affected towards our 
government, and it would be the most humane way of 



10 

clealinjj with the slaves and their masters. With laws 
favourable to emancipation, and the abolition of all 
those laws inimical to the education of the coloured 
population and their recognition in law as men, a pro- 
cess would be begun which would gradually but cer- 
tainly emancipate the race. 

After the removal of the discontented of the South- 
ern population beyond the river, the South would be a 
vast field for immigration, and instead of going to the 
North and West, free labour would seek the vacant 
country. It would add immensely to the strength of 
the nation, and so far from losing by casting off the 
States and Territories beyond the Mississippi, we would 
gain, by being more compact, united in sentiment, and 
varied in our agricultural and manufacturing industry. 
It is our interest to consolidate the country rather than 
extend it, and the political manoeuvring for new States 
and Territories have been an injury to the older States 
and to many thousands of people. 

There are fewer difficulties attached to this scheme 
than even to the conquest of the entire country, and the 
extension of the Constitution, as it is, over the whole. 
AVere this done, it would leave the ominous distinction 
of slave and free States. Were freedom given at once 
to the millions now in slavery, it might produce a state 
of anarchy; but by establishing a species of serfdom, 
preliminary to emancipation, to the east of the Missis- 
sippi, the change from slave to freemen might be accom- 
plished almost imperceptibly, without injury to either 
slave or master. It is easy to perceive that this war 
has increased the number of emancipationists a thou- 
sand-fold. When the alternative is the destruction of 
slavery or of the government, the choice is easily made. 
But it is not slavery as a social institution, but as a 



11 

political power, that has produced the rebellion. Two 
antagonistic powers have from the first contended for 
the government of the country, and to preserve the 
balance between them, has been the great political 
problem for our statesmen. To readjust the comprom- 
ises as new territory was added, was continually neces- 
sary. Failing in time to do this, the war began in 
Kansas, and was but carried over to Charleston. 

Our war contains many of the elements of the old 
cause of war — a disputed succession. The South would 
not have Mr. Lincoln to reign over them. Any 
attempt to show that the war originated in a dread of 
Northern interference with slavery as an institution 
must be futile. It was denounced by a few individuals, 
but in opposition to them were arrayed the masses of 
the people. The pulpit and tlie press almost unani- 
mously declared that to speak of it as a sin was atheism. 
In place of it, in the North, the coloured man was sub- 
jected to proscription and degradation as galling as 
slavery itself The South had no fear of abolition, but 
the leaders felt that they were doomed to lose that 
ascendency in the government which they had held 
from the beginning, and chose rather to precipitate the 
country into rebellion. It originated with the politi- 
cians, not with the masses, and was forced down upon 
them by the leaders in the government. 

If there had been no other distinguishing names but 
slave and free States, or North and South, the leaders 
would have had more difficulty in arraying the people 
against each other; but with the generally understood 
doctrine that every State was sovereign and indepen- 
dent, they had but to secure the leaders in the State 
government, take a vote for secession, and the con- 
sciences of the people naturally transferred their alle- 



12 

gianrc. Thus it is how slavery and State sovereignty 
are impUcated in the rebellion. It is but another ex- 
ample added to thousands that have gone before, that it 
needs but a watchword and a leader to draw a people 
into rebellion. A love of war is one of the natural prin- 
ciples of the corrupt heart of man. However much we 
may surpass onr rude ancestors in knowledge and re- 
finement, the springs that actuate the heart and conduct 
are the same that led them to the battles of the Roses; 
and a party name is as dangerous now as it was then. 
AVhen Abimelechs and Absaloms and Jeroboams spring 
np, they find the people ready to follow them. 

Our duty, then, if we wish unity, is to have it both in 
name and reality. A great hinderance to this is the 
State governments. They will be supported by those 
who love their corruptions, but they are obstacles to 
good government, and all that they do could be done 
better by a less complicated machinery. It would 
be much better if we had only one civil, criminal, and 
military law for the whole country, and with State 
laws, get rid of those who administer them. The 
Philadelphia Ledger^ a few days ago, advocated a 
national system of education; but certainly the same 
arguments would have had far greater force against the 
control exercised by the governors in our military 
affairs. We have thousands of officers and legislators 
of whom we have no need ; for a law passed in Wash- 
ington can as easily be executed in Maine as in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. Till the State governments are 
abolished, we will never be one people. 

Some people wonder how the South could rebel 
against our most beneficent government. Many a kind 
and indulgent father, who has never thwarted the will 
of his sons in anything, has in the end found himself in 



13 

the same predicament. Emerging from a revolutionary 
struggle, the founders of our government dealt tenderly 
with rebellion. They laid the right to govern npon the 
consent of the people, and tacitly admitted their right 
to withdraw that consent. In the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, which is interwoven with our national life, 
we find the following remarkable words: "When- 
ever any form of government becomes destructive 
of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter 
or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, 
laying its foundation on such principles, and organiz- 
ing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem 
most likely to effect their safety and happiness," 
With such doctrines reiterated to them every fourth of 
July, it is due to the good sense and better instincts 
of the people that this is the first attempt to overthrow 
it. The leaders of the Southern conspiracy saw this 
weak point, and Mr. Buchanan found that he had no 
constitutional power to stop the secession movement. 
The originators of our system of government considered 
all preceding governments to be tyrannous usurpations 
upon human rights, and made stringent laws only for 
those who would trespass upon the people's liberties. It 
now appears that this was not the only evil to be guarded 
against, and by a want of power this rebellion has been 
allowed to gain its monstrous proportions. Our very 
beneficent government has become the most destructive 
that ever existed. The lives and property sacrificed in 
this rebellion will, even with peace at hand, exceed 
what has been destroyed in all former rebellions. Any 
system of government not founded upon the great truth 
that the human heart is depraved, and that does not set 
itself to counteract its evil principles, is defective, and 
will sooner or later expose its deficiencies. 



14 

Our government has nursed its destroyers. By the 
system of rotation in office, introduced about thirty years 
ago, it has raised up a chiss of men, consisting of those 
in office, and those desiring office, called poh'ticians, who 
have entirely usurped the government of the country. 
The chances of obtaining a lucrative office, with an abund- 
ance of perquisites, and the almost unquestioned right of 
peculation, has tempted thousands from industrial em- 
ployments to lead a precarious life of idleness and dissi- 
pation. In their view the President is but the tool for 
dispensing the offices under his patronage, as the reward 
of their activity in electioneering for his party. They 
are continually in rebellion against law and justice. 
In some places they endeavour to obtain their ends by 
violence; in others by organized fraud. The great pur- 
pose of government is not recognised by them, and an 
election is merely a struggle for the spoils. In the 
South they are the leaders in rebellion; and in the 
North the plunderers of tlie government, and the great 
obstacle in the way of suppressing it. While the people 
have been increasing in physical and in moral greatness, 
through their instrumentality, the government, for the 
last thirty years, has been sinking in imbecility and cor- 
ruption. I do not say that they are worse than other 
men. Their existence is due to the system. If the 
tenure of at least all the minor executive offices were 
made/<^r life or for fault, the patronage would be so 
reduced that the class would disappear, and the word 
politician once more signify a man versed in the policy 
of nations. 

I have now sue:":csted what would be a reasonable 
basis for peace, and some of the changes of government 
necessary to make it lasting. It is not between the 
South and the North only that there are confficting ele- 



15 

ments. Almost every State has some peculiarity which 
they wish protected, and the services of our representa- 
tives are measured more by the local advantages they 
have obtained than by their services for our common 
country. We need a wider and less selfish patriotism. 
With a load of debt and increased taxation, the diffi- 
culty, under our present system, of harmonizing con- 
flicting interests, will be made greater. With a whole 
continent under one fiscal rule, the clause of the Con- 
stitution enacting that "all duties, imports, and excises, 
shall be uniform throughout the States," so far from 
being equable, will be oppressive. The instrument was 
not made for a world. It was doubted in the days of 
Washington, "whether a common government can em- 
brace so large a sphere"* as even the thirteen States. 
Now the extent is increased immensely. We can alter 
the Constitution in this respect, but it would be better 
to curtail the limits of the country. We would lose 
nothing by having another government over the terri- 
tory west of the Mississippi. It would be much like our 
own, and those at any time dissatisfied with the one 
country would go to the other. We need not fear 
aggression from them — their pressure would still be 
southward. The Rio Grande, not the Mississippi, will be 
the theatre of the next conflict. The restoration of peace 
would yet send a united thrill of joy over our divided land. 
With a wild burst of aflection, many now in hostile 
array would rush into each other's arms. The twin re- 
publics of the West would rise side by side, proud of each 
other's achievements, emulous of each other's greatness. 
United by a diversity of interests which will ever make 
them necessary to each other, they would cultivate the 

* Farewell AdJress. 



16 

irts of peace and not of war ; and the mailed and pano- 
:>lied ram would give place to richly laden argosies, 
skimming the Gulf shore, and bearing the manufactures 
)f the North in exchange for the cotton and rice and 
sugars of the South. Let us then "seek peace," and if 
^ou are not satisfied with my scheme, propose another. 
By the smouldering ruins of cities; by the wail of an- 
guish from the bereaved; by the mutilated and shat- 
tered bodies of our fellow-men, I conjure you, from 
heaven and earth to " seek peace and pursue it." 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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